Additional query on belongsTo relation when foreign key is null

Let's imagine that we have a product model which belongs to a category, but the category can be null.

Product->with('category')->find(1);

This gives me a product with a category. If category_id is null, the relationship is also null (as expected). But Laravel runs 2 queries:


select * from `products` where `products`.`id` = 1 limit 1

select * from categories where 0 = 1 and categories.deleted_at is null

Is there a native laravel way to avoid the second query when the foreign key is null?

Level 51

Don't use with, Just do it like $product->category, because it's just belongsTo so you will not run against N + 1 problem.

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